ARCHIVE: Past Shows

gif jpg png tif Jess Ramsay

gif. jpg. png. gif. exhibited from March 3 to April 28, 2011 in the HERE gallery.

About the show

gif jpg png tif (gjpt) is a group exhibition that explores the realm of standardized image formats as represented in Internet-based art, websites, videos, applications, and multi-media design. Drawing inspiration from the history of graphic and web design, video game interfaces, online community forums, and other various forms of user-generated web content, gjpt will explore the territory of ordered pixels and formulas that have become the norm and remain the unquestioned presentation of visual media in the digital world.

The history of the small graphic images has roots in web design and development, while maintaining a unique dedication to user-generated content. Animated gifs littered homemade webpages before the concept of blogging and social media existed. Banners made of low resolution jpegs populated LiveJournal pages before the likes of Facebook, and now nearly every social media site maintains that all uploaded images be .gif, .jpg, .png, or .tif. In the digital age, media and imagery is filtered and re-presented throughout every vessel (i.e. cell phones, webpages, iPad, LCD screen advertisements, and so forth), all taking the form of pixels generated onscreen to form images, text, advertisements, and the like.

The presentation of visual media through the standardized image formats is further reflected in the language of digital media. Keyboards, touch screens, remote interfaces, and apps have all maintained similarly ordered modes of presentation, using a rhetoric largely dictated by the medium, under the assumption that the user will understand. And we do.

The group exhibition will feature web artists, video artists, sound artists, installation artists, and traditional fine artists working within the framework of digital media, online content, and interactive works using the standardized formats of .gif, .jpg, .png, or .tif. The artists, some working digitally, and others only exploring the history of digital media and language, will all be presenting work that either critiques, questions, examines, or celebrates the vast, yet firmly defined, field of digital displays of visual media.